


Good With His Hands

by DesireeArmfeldt



Category: Canadian 6 Degrees, Wilby Wonderful (2004)
Genre: Canon Gay Character, Character Study, POV Third Person Limited, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-29
Updated: 2012-11-29
Packaged: 2017-11-19 19:40:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/576921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesireeArmfeldt/pseuds/DesireeArmfeldt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Duck has always been good with his hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good With His Hands

When his third grade teacher told his parents, “Walter is good with his hands,” Duck knew it wasn’t really praise.  What she meant was, he struggled with stupid picture books when the other kids were reading chapter books, and he lined up the digits wrong when he tried to do subtraction.  Mrs. Martin didn’t really care that Duck was good at craft projects and woodshop and tying little kids’ shoelaces.  She was just looking for a nice way to say Duck was dumb. 

 

                                    *                                    *                                    *

 

As far as Duck’s father was concerned, good with his hands was what a man was expected to be.  It wasn’t something he ever made a fuss about.  But Duck could tell his dad was proud of him by the way he kept giving him responsibility for harder and more important tasks: painting the fiddly scrollwork on the Town Hall porch, installing the MacKenzies’ sink, framing the extension on the Townsend place.  Working at his father’s side, neither of them saying anything except to ask for a tool or the thermos of coffee, that right there was love.

 

                                    *                                    *                                    *

 

Growing up, he learned to be good with his fists; being small and a loner, he had to be able to take care of himself.  But he avoids fighting when he can; nowadays, that’s pretty much always.  He’s doesn’t get in people’s way, and he isn’t afraid of anyone, so it’s not really worth the bother of messing with him and mostly people don’t.

 

                                    *                                    *                                    *

 

Sometimes Duck wishes he could just let his hands speak for him all the time.  It’s not that he doesn’t have the words to say what he means, but sometimes it takes him a while to get them out, and then it usually turns out people weren’t listening anyway.  Most people would rather talk than listen.  Most of the time, Duck listens to what people aren’t saying.  It’s easier to understand people that way; easier to like them, too.

 

He likes to make people smile.  It isn’t hard to do; people smile at simple things.  A smile, a friendly joke, a favor, someone who listens.  A job well done.  A touch—but there aren’t many people who’d want Duck’s hands on them for more than a casual handshake or shoulder slap, and none who’d allow it in daylight.

 

                                    *                                    *                                    *

 

Duck likes people, in general, but he likes quiet, too.  He likes to be alone, looking out at the ocean, or smoking and watching the stars.  He likes working alone, just him with the tools in his hands and a problem to fix.  It satisfies him to make something useful, something that will last.  When he walks around the island, he sees the work of his hands all around, part of the place, part of people’s lives.  There’s not much that can beat that.

 

                                    *                                    *                                    *

 

By the time he was in high school, he’d figured out that he wasn’t so much dumb as not particularly interested in school, but he’d also learned how to pay enough attention to keep his head above water.  He also finally started catching up to the other boys in height, just about the time when the girls stopped being taller than the boys.  He watched the other boys making idiots of themselves trying to get the girls’ attention, and vice versa, not really sure what the big deal was all about. 

 

One time, a bunch of girls pushed Katie Howard forward to approach him at his locker.  Blushing bright red, she whispered, “You have beautiful hands,” and then hurried away, trailed by her giggling friends.  After that he’d look at his own hands, sometimes: man-sized hands he’d almost grown into, with long fingers and thumbs that bent strangely far back at the top joint, covered with little scars and scrapes, marked with grease and dirt and paint even when he’d washed them.  When he tried to picture those hands cupping a girl’s cheek like in the movies, right before the kiss, it just seemed wrong.  His hands belonged on some other planet from that soft skin and lipstick and carefully curled hair.

 

                                    *                                    *                                    *

 

It was towards the end of high school that he started hanging out at the Watch on good-weather nights, sneaking out of the house when his parents were asleep.  At the Watch, there aren’t many words.  Duck’s hands speak for him there; listen, too, to the bodies of the men he touches.  He’s skilled at giving pleasure, at figuring out what a man needs without having to be told and giving it to him.  He enjoys touching and being touched, even in this restricted way; he enjoys hearing them gasp and moan, feeling them shiver and buck, and knowing it’s him doing that to them.  It’s a craft, sex, as much as carpentry or plumbing, and he gives it the same care and focus that he gives to his daylight work.  It pleases him to give someone a really good orgasm, like putting on a gutter straight or shingling a roof good and tight.

 

Sometimes he practices on himself.  Sometimes he jerks off imagining someone else’s hands on him.  No one in particular; just a pair of strong, supple hands, warm on his skin.  Knowing him without words.


End file.
